There were good reasons why, unlike Ineke, I didn’t include meals with the cabin rentals—or with the suites upstairs for that matter. Use of the kitchen? Yes. Me putting out more than snacks? Not a chance. Since Aggie and the boys were more of a mind to eat whatever was available and hadn’t yet acquired any discernment about what foods were a good or bad combination, they were quite happy with what I brought out.
I hadn’t been gone that long, but they had rummaged through all the supplies and toys I had purchased and had transformed the Murder game.
The original board was in the center of the table, but the rooms now had labels that matched the downstairs rooms in The Jumble, even if the layout couldn’t match. They had taken sheets of colored construction paper and added green woodland on three sides of the board. On the fourth side, they had snugged three little houses together to represent the lakeside cabins, added a strip of tan paper to represent the beach and, finally, blue paper to represent the lake. Aggie was busy making strips of squares that matched the size of the squares on the board, while Conan carefully secured the strips to the construction paper to indicate paths in the woods and paths from the kitchen down to the cabins and the lake. Cougar had found the sets of little plastic toys and created a cluster of trees on each of the green sheets of paper. There were farm animals—cow, pig, chicken, horse—scattered on the papers, positioned next to squares. There were also foxes, hawks, owls, a family of deer, and a moose. And there was a wolf and a coyote.
The bear, cougar, and crow were set on three of the places where players started the game. As for the people . . .
“Look!” Aggie beamed at me as she paused in her square making to hold up a figure in a police uniform. “It’s a teeny Grimshaw. And here is a teeny Vicki!”
They were plastic figures that had come out of molds. They had no relevance to the real world. It still gave me a thrill to see that teeny Vicki was just as tall as teeny Grimshaw.
Teeny Vicki was also placed on the game board in a starting position. Teeny Grimshaw was in the library. I had no idea why. Other teeny people included a dark-haired man dressed in casual business attire that made me think of Julian. There was a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck and a woman in a nurse’s uniform. There was a woman wearing an apron, like a short-order cook. There was a curvy, dark-haired woman in a business suit. And a man in a business suit. Except for teeny Grimshaw, the other people were placed on the edges of the board, as if they weren’t part of the game yet. Except for the woman in the long blue dress who was placed in the center of the blue paper that represented the lake.
I didn’t have to ask who she was.
But there was one other creature on the board. I put down the tray of snacks and picked up one of my fuzzy white socks. It had been stuffed with a partial roll of toilet paper. The sock now had frowny eyes drawn on with a permanent black marker, as well as a mouth full of a ghastly number of teeth, and arms that ended with paw-hands that had serious claws.
“What is this?” I asked.
“That’s the Elder,” Aggie said, taking it from me and replacing it on the board.
I would never be able to wear that sock without either stepping on an Elder or looking down and seeing that face looking up at me.
Besides the die that was rolled for movement, there was another pair of dice that, I was told, was used for a number of things. And there was a small stack of cards made from index cards that had been cut in half. Since those were turned over and placed in the center of the board where the envelope with the answers usually resided, they weren’t part of the human version of the game. Then again, neither were the question marks that were randomly placed on some of the squares, both on the board and on the newly created paths.
We had our snacks while Aggie and the boys finished making the pieces for their version of the game. I took the dishes back to the kitchen and returned to the social room with a pitcher of cold water and several plastic glasses.
“We’re ready to play,” Aggie said.
Cougar wrinkled his lips, revealing his mismatched teeth, and said, “Heh-heh-heh-heh.”
Oh golly. Did I really want to play a game that made Cougar that gleeful?
I gave them my brightest smile. “Alrighty! Let’s—” I heard a car pull up and headed for the front door. “That must be Julian.” I heard two car doors close, then two more, and hesitated. Maybe that wasn’t Julian. Maybe it was someone else, someone who thought I would be alone here.
I was aware of Conan coming up behind me and Cougar moving past me toward the front door.
The doorbell rang.
CHAPTER 37
Grimshaw
Watersday, Juin 24
Grimshaw glanced in the rearview mirror at the two bags of groceries and the three large pizzas filling up the back seat of the cruiser before focusing on the wet road. “You expecting Vicki DeVine to live on pizza for the next few days?” Or few weeks?
“She said Aggie and the boys were staying with her during the storm,” Julian replied. “I wanted to make sure she had enough food in the house.”
He wasn’t sure pizza would be the best choice of food for a Bear and Panther, but he didn’t argue. Besides, he liked pizza.
“I could have taken my own car,” Julian said.
“This one handles better on wet roads.”
Julian said nothing for a minute. “Were you worried about her too?”
It was his turn to choose his words. “Not worried as such. But I’ve been patrolling the village since the storm hit to make note of any flooded streets or downed power lines.” And giving quiet thanks last night that he wasn’t one of the highway patrol officers driving those dark roads in the wild country in this weather. “The Jumble and its residents are also part of my territory, so it was time to check up on them.”
“And to show the terra indigene that human authority isn’t ignoring someone they’ve taken an interest in.”
“That too.”
He turned onto the access road to The Jumble. Someone had removed the chain across the road. Had one of the boys, as Vicki DeVine called them, come out to do it? Or had it been down a while, maybe indicating that someone else had gone up to the main house?
“Julian?”
“We’re not walking into anything,” Julian said after a long moment.
Then he would assess the situation and decide if he should mention the chain to Conan or Cougar. After all, they were the ones who had put it up in the first place.
They got out of the car. Julian grabbed the three pizzas and Grimshaw grabbed the two bags of groceries. They closed the car doors and ran for the overhang protecting the front door. Julian juggled the pizzas and managed to ring the doorbell.
When the door opened, it wasn’t Vicki DeVine standing there to greet them. It was Cougar, and he didn’t look like greeting them was what he had in mind.
“We brought pizza,” Julian said.
“Hi, Julian,” Vicki said brightly, peering around Cougar. “You’re just in time!” She hesitated for a moment. “Officer Grimshaw.”
“Hope it’s all right for me to stop by,” he said. He wasn’t in uniform and had left Osgood on call for the evening.